In a letter of March 31, 1824, Franz Schubert wrote the following to Leopold

Kupelweiser:

Stellen Sie sich einen Mann, dessen Gesundheit nie wieder gut werden, und wer in schiere Verzweiflung über dies jemals macht alles nur schlimmer und schlimmer noch, statt besser, sich vorstellen einen Mann, sage ich, dessen glänzendste Hoffnungen umkamen, an wen umgekommen, denen die Glückseligkeit der Liebe und Freundschaft haben nichts zu bieten, aber Schmerzen am besten, den Begeisterung (zumindest der stimulierenden Art) für alle schönen Dinge droht verlassen, und ich bitte Sie, er ist nicht ein elender, unglücklicher Seins? - "Meine Ruh ,ist hin, mein Herz ist wund, werde ich finde sie nimmer und nimmermehr "Ich kann gut singen jetzt jeden Tag, für jede Nacht, auf Zubettgehen, ich hoffe, ich kann nicht wieder aufwachen, und jeden Morgen, aber erinnert gestrigen Trauer.

(Imagine a man whose health will never be right again, and who in sheer despair over this ever makes things worse and worse, instead of better; imagine a man, I say, whose most brilliant hopes have perished, to whom have perished, to whom the felicity of love and friendship have nothing to offer but pain at best, whom enthusiasm (at least of the stimulating kind) for all things beautiful threatens to forsake, and I ask you, is he not a miserable, unhappy being? – "My peace is gone, my heart is sore, I shall find it never and nevermore," I may well sing every day now, for each night, on retiring to bed, I hope I may not wake again, and each morning but recalls yesterday's grief.)

In assuming the text of Gretchen's semi-delirious song from Goethe's Faust, Schubert evokes the same helpless agony felt by the Wanderer in Winterreise in 1827, the agony that had already prompted the Miller to succumb to the Bächlein's temptation in Die schöne Müllerin. Schubert's venereal disease diagnosis in 1823 resulted in the necessity of coming to terms with mortality, and it is incomprehensible that this revelation would not invade the musical drama of his two major song-cycles.

In both Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise, death is the desired ultimate journey for the protagonists. Yet only the Miller achieves "kühle Ruh:" the Wanderer cannot, or will not, acquiesce to the comfort of death. In many ways, the outpouring of grief to Kupelweiser and desire for death apparent in the above-quoted letter suggests Schubert's willingness to end his own life, yet Schubert lived with his illness for five years.

Given these circumstances, it is not surprising that a great number of Schubert's songs engage with aspects of death. As many Schubert scholars have illuminated, a substantial number of his approximately 600 Lieder draw their subject matter "auf das Ende menschlichen Lebens (about the end of human life)." This group of Lieder includes some of his most famous, including Erlkönig,Der Tod und das Mädchen, and of course the two Müller cycles, Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise.

Schubert's own perception of death was certainly shaded by the circumstances of his ill-health and cognizance of his own mortality. By 1823, he was experiencing the onset of syphilis, and would have been immediately aware of its ultimate consequences. To Franz von Schober he wrote, in August 1823, that "Whether I shall ever quite recover I am inclined to doubt." In November of 1823, a friend wrote to Schober that upon visiting Schubert "I found him seriously ill at the time, but you know that anyhow."

Die schöne Müllerin came into existence against the "new and terrible realization" of his condition. This is a fact that writers on Schubert have often failed to explore. Early Schubert biographers, including von Hellborn and Reissmann, inaccurately placed Schubert's first syphilis-related illness at the beginning of 1824, after the cycle's completion. Other biographers correctly label Schubert's illness but treat it as a condition separate from his compositional activity. Even Schubert authority Richard Capell, writing in the first half of the twentieth century, refuses to synthesize illness and composition: while discussing Schubert's dejected state in 1823, he finds Schubert conquered his dejection and bequeathed "to charmed posterity the May-time music of the sun and showers, the brook and watermill, and the fine and fickle hearts of Die schöne Müllerin."

The Miller's heart loved passionately, yet it is this passion that causes his ultimate despair. It is implicit at no point in the cycle that the Maid returns, or has ever returned, his affection. By the twelfth song in the cycle, "Pause," the Miller has come down from the euphoric state of "Mein," and questions whether his exuberance has perhaps been slightly pre-mature. The final measures of the piano postlude, which shifts from B-flat major to minor and back again, highlight the uncertainty of the cycle's outcome. When we reach the pair of songs about the color green, however, death is revealed as the Miller's threatened outcome, and we know for certain his intentions by "Trock'ne Blumen." In the end we cannot know the fate of the Miller. All we do know is that the final song of the cycle is sung as a cradle song to the Miller by the brook. Many suppositions have been proposed about the end of the cycle ranging from suicide of the protagonist to simply finding solace and peace of mind with his torment. This open-ended analysis is highlighted by the final chord of the cycle. Like our interpretation, the cycle ends rather unfinished in a repetitive codetta of sorts which ends on an imperfect authentic cadence that is highlighted by an open fifth in the treble voices of the piano.

What separates this dramatic progression from countless others in post-Werther literature and poetry? I mention Werther because this seminal work played a very significant role in shaping the current of German Romanticism while remaining an archetype for Sturm und Drang. Its elements of longing, unrequited love, and tragedy were loosely autobiographical, and greatly influenced the entire continent of Europe. After all, Schubert did not write the poetry – he is not the Miller. But he does share two characteristics with the Miller in 1823, and these characteristics signify the importance of the Miller's fate for Schubert himself: Schubert's disease, while not a broken heart, was probably sexually transmitted, meaning that it was passion that led to his demise; and more importantly, Schubert wished his own life to end, as suggested in the above letter to Kupelweiser.

Schubert's contraction of syphilis is often given to support theories of his homosexual promiscuity, yet his alleged homosexuality is actually a moot point in this case (although it will shed light on a few matters later on). Schubert's questionable sexual orientation would have made him in no way more likely to fall victim to a venereal disease: in Pezzl's "Sketch of Vienna," the prominence of prostitution in Vienna is all too clear. The problem of disease was great enough for Pezzl to make reference to suggestions that would governmentally regulate brothels, thus theoretically making them safer for frequenters since they would be under medical supervision.

Susan Youens has illuminated to fascinating result the relationship between Schubert's disease and the drama of the cycle. She relies on the three poems that Schubert did not include in the cycle to show the character change evident from Müller's original Miller to Schubert's Miller. These three poems included Müller's seventh poem "Das Mühlenleben," originally placed between "Der Neugierige" and "Ungeduld," the seventeenth poem "Erster Schmerz, letzter Scherz," originally followed by "Die liebe Farbe," and the twentieth poem "Blümlein Vergißmein," originally before "Trock'ne Blumen." By omitting these three poems, Schubert drastically altered the psychology of the drama. "Blümlein Vergißmein" is a poem of intense sexual symbolism, and as Youens states, "shows the lad on the verge of madness, lacerating himself in a frenzy of sexual rage that breaks him utterly ... [it is] the culmination of a desperate crescendo and the poem which makes the lad's suicide explicable, even anti-climatic." In the poem, the Miller is traumatized by the idea of the Maid's sexual experiences, which turns into an intense disgust for female sexual genitalia. This achieves greater potency if one believes that the Miller did in fact sleep with the Maid, entirely possible before the eleventh song "Mein," even though there is no proof of her affection (the similarity to a prostitute-type encounter is significant, obviously). Thus, after envisioning the Maid with the hunter, the Miller is not only filled with disgust for sex, but also painfully humiliated due to his evident lack of virile manliness compared with the symbol of testosterone, the hunter. Under this light, of intense embarrassment, the importance of the brook's command to "close your eyes" at the beginning of its lullaby is significant, as is its command to the Maid to throw down her shawl so that it may cover the Miller's eyes and spare him further humiliation.

The differences between Schubert's and Müller's interpretations are clear. In Müller's version, the Miller dies humiliated, miserable, ravaged, and near madness; in Schubert's version, the omission of "Blümlein Vergißmein" leaves the Miller a semblance of quiet dignity. While the meaning of Schubert's decision to omit these three poems is ambiguous, it is tempting to believe that he wished the Miller a more peaceful death, one untouched by tremendous unhappiness, by the torture of humiliated sexuality.

In Die schöne Müllerin, there is no resistance against death. This separates the cycle from two significant earlier works dealing with death in which the desire for life is clearly evident: Erlkönig (1815) and Der Tod und das Mädchen (1817). In the latter song, the father-like comforting aspect of death is unmistakable. As in Erlkönig, the youth does not want to die, but in this case the authoritarian voice of death is remarkably human; he is a "Freund," and the metaphor of death as sleep, so important to "Des Baches Wiegenlied," is introduced.

Death is a "welcome guest," to use Dido's sentiments, and the Miller's suicide has a two-fold dramatic element. There is the desire to leave the pain of the irdischen Welt, but as in Dido's lament, the Miller wishes to be remembered to the living. This is especially true of "Trock'ne Blumen," the eighteenth song in Schubert's cycle, which is in many ways the "Letzte Hoffnung" of Die schöne Müllerin. The Miller places his hope not on a leaf, but on the flowers he has saved as a remembrance of his love, that they might facilitate his ability to live on in her heart. He wishes to believe that she will then realize the tragedy that is about to befall him. Unfortunately, he is unable to successfully convince himself of this possibility: as Youens claims, his love for the Maid is "Romantic love, unattainable in life," and he is not able to project the Maid actually loving him– she is capable of only recognizing his love.

Schubert's music reflects the desperate attempt, and ultimate failure, of the Miller to achieve his Romantic dream of continued life in the heart of the Maid. "Trock'ne Blumen" begins with a Winterreise-esque walking motive, but the Miller's wandering has ended. Instead, the character is of a death march in stark E minor, colored by augmented sixth chords, first Italian and then French, which add inquisitiveness to the already uncertain climate. The Miller's final hope for recognition comes in E major, climaxing on the phrase "Der Mai ist kommen, der Winter ist aus!" The surreal conjuring of spring is repeated three times as the Miller tries to convince himself that it is indeed possible. Yet after the third repetition, the Miller's true psychological state of mind is revealed; the piano leaps down an octave and abruptly changes from the triumphant E major back to E minor, while the dynamics decrease to a pp. He returns to the chill world of E minor; E major will come again only with death.

After the Miller's final hope, the final two songs present no vision of resurrection or afterlife. Instead, they focus on the ultimate peacefulness and comfort of humanity's final state. Remarkably, "Der Müller und der Bach" is in a sense the brook's last hope – a final attempt to convince the Miller that he can conquer his pain. The ternary form, alternating Miller, Bächlein, Miller, traverses a path from G minor to G major and back to the minor. The Miller's first text describes reactions to his death, incorporating the significant mentioning of eyes closing and the moon vanishing, while the brook's response, in its key of G major, describes the joy of conquering love's pain. As Youens shows, the brook's melodic range is much wider than the exhausted Miller's: the brook is capable of soaring up to the high G while the Miller is only able to circumnavigate the tonic chord.

The last stanzas of "Der Müller und der Bach" are the Miller's final utterances, and the music depicts the giving over of his life to the brook, shifting to G major, the key of "Wohin," as the final answer is given. The journey ends in the water, and in Schubert's typically descriptive piano postlude the Miller descends to death in the cool depths (Example 2).

The final song, "Des Baches Wiegenlied," lulls him to eternal sleep. The strophic form, diatonic harmony and repetitive melody all contribute to the soothing character of the lullaby. The piano introduction immediately synthesizes the death march of "Trock'ne Blumen" with rippling water music, thereby merging death and the brook and suggesting that death itself is the Miller's comfort, unlike in "Trock'ne Blumen" where his comfort is the post-mortem fulfillment of his love. It is significant that this synthesis comes in the piano, because in Die schöne Müllerin the piano has represented the unfaltering truth, and would not lead the Miller astray.

Example 3:"Des Baches Wiegenlied," measures 1-4.

Schubert conceives of death in the E major Klangraum (realm of key), whereas the vital world of life is B-flat major, introduced in "Das Wandern." Therefore, the tonal progression of the cycle is often conceived as tritonic, from Bb to E. Perhaps it would be more logical to view the progression as a descending diminished triad: Bb – G – E. The Bach's key of G, from "Wohin" to "Der Müller und der Bach," is the linking key between the Bb of "Das Wandern" and the E of "Trock'ne Blumen" and "Des Baches Wiegenlied." The B of G major becomes the tonic of important dramatic songs such as "Der Neugierige," "Die liebe Farbe," and "Die böse Farbe," and easily serves as the dominant transition from the end of "Die böse Farbe" to E minor/major in "Trock'ne Blumen." It is therefore through the brook's key of G that E becomes a viable key in the overall harmonic design of the cycle (Table 1).

As is evident from the above chart, of the final nine songs of the cycle only "Der Jäger" in C minor is not part of this tonal scheme (and perhaps it is fitting that the impostor, the hunter, be assigned a key foreign to this tightly-woven relationship between the Miller and the brook).

The symbolism of this, of course, is that the brook acts as an intermediary between life and death in the poetic drama. The Miller's suicide is accomplished in the brook's cool depths. Therefore, both symbolically and musically, the brook is the facilitator of the Miller's comfort and relief, his companion as well as the end of his wandering path.

Schubert's symbolic use of keys in Die schöne Müllerin also allows a glimpse into his perception of death. The composer's tonal choices overwhelmingly correspond to trends in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century tonal practice, most significantly the key characteristics put forth by Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart in his 1806 Ideen zu einer Ästhetik der Tonkunst. It is clear that representative songs from Schubert's cycle correspond to these theories, as has been recently discussed by Elmar Budde. The key of B-flat is one of hope, of "aspiration for a better world," and E major one of "noisy shouts of joy" and "laughing pleasure." G major, the key of the brook, is representative of "Everything rustic, idyllic and lyrical, every calm and satisfied passion, every tender gratitude for true friendship and faithful love, - in a word, every gentle and peaceful emotion of the heart is correctly expressed by this key."